No Witness

by Warren C Easley

  Gillian returned the smile. “You’re welcome, Carlos. We would have beaten them in court.”

  Carlos turned back to me. “And you chased down the man who killed my Olivia. I will be forever grateful to you for that.”

  I nodded. “And we’re not done yet.”

  The day was clear and bright, forcing Carlos to shade his eyes as we exited the building. Gillian hurried off to a meeting, and Zoe and I lingered for a few moments, watching Timoteo, Luis, and Mariana walk joyfully with Carlos toward their car, parked toward the end of the lot. They were halfway there when two black SUVs entered the lot, one from each end. A uniformed, armed agent got out of the SUV closest to Carlos and approached him.

  “Carlos Fuentes,” he said in a voice that carried across the lot, “you are under arrest for violating U.S. immigration laws.”

  Luis and Timoteo stepped in front of their father. Luis said, “Fuck off, you pieces of shit, you can’t do this. He just got released from jail for something he didn’t do.”

  “Sir,” the agent said, “I’m going to need you to step aside.” He looked at Timoteo. “You, too, sir.”

  Neither Luis nor Timoteo moved. A door clicked open, and a second agent got out of the nearer SUV. He was much bigger than his partner. No one moved in the other SUV, but I thought I recognized the person sitting in the passenger seat.

  “Stay here,” I said to Zoe and hurried off toward the confrontation.

  “We’re not moving,” Timoteo said with defiance ringing in his voice. “You’ll have to arrest us as well.”

  Mariana stepped in next to Timoteo and linked arms with him, tears streaming down her face. “And, me, too.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said under my breath.

  The bigger agent said, “This is your last warning. Step aside so we can arrest this man. We don’t want any trouble here.”

  “You don’t want any trouble?” Luis snarled. “What you’re doing is trouble, you ass—”

  “Luis, Timoteo, Mariana, do what he says.” I said, catching up to the group. “This is not the place to fight this.” Carlos looked stunned and confused, but both his sons eyed me like I was some sort of traitor. I held their anguished gazes. “Not here. You won’t win this. Trust me, step aside, please.”

  The tableau remained for what seemed an eternity. Finally, Timoteo took his younger brother by one arm and Mariana by the other. “Cal’s right. This isn’t the place.”

  He moved to one side with Luis and Mariana in tow. “Fuckers,” Luis said under his breath.

  I turned to the two agents. “I’m this man’s attorney. Do you have an arrest warrant?”

  “Yes,” the bigger agent said. The smaller agent went to the SUV, returned with a clipboard, and showed me the warrant. It stated that Carlos was being arrested for being undocumented and was duly signed off. There was nothing I could do.

  I turned to Carlos. “Go with them now, but don’t worry, we’ll get this straightened out.” He didn’t say a word. He knew the gravity of the situation only too well.

  Zoe joined us, and we all stood by as Carlos was patted down and handcuffed. I said, “Carlos, you have the right to remain silent. Don’t talk to anyone, no matter what they tell you. Ned and I will be in touch.”

  “Stay strong, Papi,” Timoteo added as Carlos was escorted to the SUV. “We’ll get you out, I promise.” Carlos looked back at his son, his face blank, unbelieving.

  I spun around and headed toward the second SUV, which was just pulling away. As I came alongside, the car stopped, and the passenger window slid down. ICE Field Supervisor Curtis Drake looked up at me. “You didn’t have to do this,” I said, my voice low and trembling with anger. “What a chickenshit move.”

  He showed a reptilian smile. “It was a righteous arrest, Claxton. The man’s an illegal alien. You just witnessed the rule of law in action.”

  I put a finger in his face. “This won’t stand, you bastard.”

  He nodded to the driver, the window slid up, and the SUV pulled away.

  I stood there seething with anger. Telling Drake the arrest wouldn’t stand was pointless, because I had no clue how that could be accomplished. But it felt damn good saying it.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  I’ve experienced some low points in my life, but the arrest of Carlos Fuentes by Immigration Control and Enforcement ranked right down there near the bottom. Of course, what I felt was nothing compared to what his sons were experiencing and Mariana, too, who’d suffered a similar trauma with the mistaken arrest of her uncle. We stood in a tight cluster in the parking lot of the Yamhill County Jail. I let them vent their immediate anger and heartbreak. At one point, Luis said, “Yeah, this is right out of ICE’s playbook. They hang around the courthouse, too, and pick off working people who are paying parking tickets and shit like that. I should have been looking for this.”

  “It’s not your fault, Luis,” Zoe said. “No one expected this to happen.”

  Timoteo looked at me. “Who was in that other SUV, the person you spoke to?”

  “Curtis Drake. He came to watch the show.”

  Timoteo’s face hardened, and he suddenly looked much older. “I thought so. Why do this to Papi at this time?”

  “Good question,” I said. “I think Thornberg tipped ICE that Carlos was being released. He’s a sore loser. But Drake didn’t have to send his agents, of course. ICE has plenty of fish to fry. I think Drake wants to distract us.” I blew a breath out. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s me for not expecting something like this.”

  “It’s not your fault, either,” Timoteo said. “Drake and Whittaker are afraid we’re getting too close to them.”

  We grew silent for a while. Finally I said to the brothers, “Look, your father raised three outstanding kids, has an exemplary employment record, and no criminal record. An immigration judge is going to take all of that into account. I’m going to call Ned Gillian, and the two of us will go to the holding center immediately and demand to see Carlos.” I paused for a moment and looked at each of them in turn, including Mariana. “Meanwhile, he needs you to stay strong, too.”

  By the time I dropped Zoe at Gertie’s place, we had replayed and dissected the arrest of Carlos Fuentes a couple of times. The last thing she said to me was, “Well, one good thing—Timoteo didn’t say anything to his mother. Raising her hopes and then dashing them again would have set her back immeasurably.”

  “Thanks for small favors,” I said.

  ***

  Needless to say, Ned Gillian was shocked and angry when I broke the news to him. “Don’t worry, Cal,” he told me, “I’ve got this, and I’m seeing it through. They’ll deport Carlos Fuentes over my dead body.”

  Brave words, but we both knew the odds of prevailing were slim to none.

  I sat in on the meeting with Carlos at the holding center. The shock had passed, and he had regained his composure—the composure of a man steeled by decades of hard work and worry, a man completely unaware that his dignity shone like a bright light. He regarded us both with a look of profound resignation. “What every immigrant fears, no? La Migra has caught me. What about my family? What’s to become of them?”

  Gillian said, “We don’t know how ICE will react. They must have probable cause to question them.”

  “Is not my arrest probable cause?”

  Gillian’s face grew taut. “We’ll fight that. Your hearing’s at least two months off. We have time to prepare a strong case. Meanwhile, you need to have faith and stay healthy, my friend. Your family is counting on you to do that.”

  Carlos nodded with resignation. He knew the score. He was essentially a condemned man.

  ***

  I was still in a funk after dinner that evening when Archie announced Zoe’s arrival. I went to the door and saved her the need to knock. “Hey,” she said, “I just came from a session with Elena, and so
mething came up I thought could be important.”

  My heart did a little stutter step when I saw her, despite my vow to Gertie. I stepped aside and she entered, producing a dog biscuit for Archie, who was as pleased as me to see her. “I bought a whole box of these for the hero dog, but he only gets one at a time,” she said as he gobbled it down with his butt wagging.

  I laughed. “He’s going to get spoiled. Nando brought him a piece of filet mignon.”

  She looked down at my dog with mock seriousness. “Don’t let him buy your affection, Archie. These biscuits are better for your teeth.”

  At the kitchen table she said, “I had a good session with Elena this evening. The death of El Solitario has made a difference, somehow, almost a breakthrough. She was telling me more about Olivia, how she kept scrapbooks and diaries over the years but always in secret. Typical girl stuff. But before the police arrived to search her room, Elena removed the items from her chest of drawers. ‘They were too personal,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t let strangers see them.’”

  I scooted my chair closer to the table. Zoe had my attention.

  “Anyway, Elena brought out this cloth bag filled with Olivia’s secret treasures. She said she felt comfortable sharing them with me. She showed me the scrapbooks and read me some of her favorite diary entries. The last one was four months before her death.”

  “No entries just prior to her murder?”

  “That’s right.” Zoe reached into her pocket and set a thumb drive on the table. “This was in the bag, and Elena didn’t know anything about it.” She met my eyes. “This is a digital diary, Cal. I think she might’ve gone digital at some point. I tried to open it on their laptop, but it’s password-protected. I, ah, told Elena I would try to figure out how to open it, so she could read the contents. I told her it could also be important for the investigation and asked if she would mind if I consulted with you. She gave me permission.”

  I picked up the thumb drive. “Nando knows a guy who can open this for us. It may take a while, though. He’s always in high demand.”

  Zoe looked at me. “I have another idea.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  An hour later, Mariana, Timoteo, Zoe, and I were in my study, huddled around my computer. “Okay,” Mariana said, “I’ve made a list of possible passwords. With this software, it has to be eight characters, at least one uppercase, and a number. I know her better than anyone. It’s something to do with music or books, the two things she was most passionate about, aside from social justice and medicine. I don’t think she’d use a serious password.”

  I slotted the thumb drive into my laptop, and the password prompt came up.

  Mariana exhaled a noisy breath. “I’m going with music first. Try Caifanes18, her favorite Mexican rock group. We went to one of their concerts in 2018 in Seattle.”

  I typed it in. “Nope.”

  “Try SaulHernandez18, their lead singer. Use both names. She wouldn’t split it up.”

  “Nope.”

  “Crap. I thought sure that would be it. Try Jaguares19. They toured the U.S. in 2019.”

  “Nope.”

  She scowled at her list. “Café Tacvba, another fave band of hers. Just try CafeTacvba17.” She spelled it for me. “That’s when we really got into this band.”

  I typed it in, then shook my head.

  She exhaled again. “Okay, it’s got to be books, then. Her fave book of all time was House on Mango Street.” Mariana paused for a moment and smiled, the one that could melt an iceberg. “I’m going with Mangostreet14. She always said that book changed her life, and we both read it our freshman year. Try that next.”

  I typed it in and waited. “Bingo. We’re in.”

  The four of us jumped to our feet and high-fived all around. Zoe said, “I’ve got an ethical problem now. I told Elena only Cal and I would see what’s on this thumb drive.” Both Timoteo and Mariana looked crestfallen.

  I said, “Under the circumstances, I don’t think Elena would mind if her son and her daughter’s best friend saw the contents as well. There may be nothing of value on it, but Timoteo and Mariana might be able to spot something we’d miss.”

  Zoe paused for a moment. “Let’s take a look. I’ll read it out loud. If it gets too personal, I’ll skip over that content.”

  She read rapidly for maybe twenty-five or thirty minutes. It was engrossing, introspective, and heartbreaking, the story of a young woman with her whole life ahead of her. Zoe had to stop numerous times to regain her composure, and one entry in late September caused Mariana to begin sobbing.

  The news about Mariana’s uncle being arrested by ICE spread like wildfire today. I’m so worried about him and for her and her family. Papi came to me today and told me to make a copy of my passport and keep it in my purse. Me! A U.S. citizen! These raids are inhuman. I’m trying not to get depressed, but it’s so hard.

  It was an entry dated October 5 that caused Zoe to slow down her rate of reading.

  Something weird happened today. I burst into Robert Harris’s office looking for a damn purchase order he’d promised me days ago. He was standing by his printer and jerked around like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. I didn’t say anything about what he was printing out, but I can read upside down really fast. It was our patient database! No question! That’s highly confidential. Why in the world would he do that? I acted like I hadn’t noticed anything.

  And on October 8, Olivia wrote:

  While Robert was out somewhere, I went into his office for his supply room key. I keep misplacing mine. There was a big envelope in his middle drawer where the key was. It wasn’t sealed. Okay, I shouldn’t have peeked, but I’ve always been nosy. Just ask my mother! Anyway, a printed copy of our patient list with names and addresses was in there, along with a note in his handwriting that said: ‘Diego Vargas, Tequila Cantina, Lafayette, Thurs night before 7.’ Was Robert delivering our database to some dude named Vargas at a bar? WTF?

  “There’s the Vargas connection,” I said, my pulse ramping up a couple of notches.

  The entry on October 13 read:

  Okay, I admit it, I snuck into Robert’s office while he was at lunch. Nothing in his middle desk drawer this time, but there was a file in his briefcase that made me curious. On the file tab Robert had written “El Seguro.” The file had some spreadsheets in it with names (all male Latino), dates, and what looked like dollar amounts, payments of some kind, in multiples of 100, none higher than 300. Totally weird! There was a handwritten note in the file (not his writing) that said, “Vargas needs more manpower. Latino males who need work, discreet, willing to buy in.” This looks really suspicious to me. I’m not going to Sofia until I know what’s going on. I may have to come on to Robert a little, but we do what we have to do.

  Timoteo said, “That’s when she recruited Luis to go to the cantina.”

  I nodded. “And that’s when she started flirting with Harris.”

  On October 15, Mariana wrote:

  Whoops! Sofia caught me snooping in Robert’s office! I almost told her what I suspected but caught myself. I need to be sure!

  “Sofia told me about that encounter,” I said. “I wish Olivia would have confided in her.”

  Timoteo sighed. “That’s just like Olivia. She gave Harris every benefit of the doubt.”

  On October 18, she wrote:

  Oh shit! Got caught today in Robert’s office. I told him I was looking for the storeroom key. He gave me this look and said, “It’s not in my briefcase, Olivia. Why are you in here, anyway?” I felt trapped, so I just point-blank asked him what the hell El Seguro meant and what was up with that guy at the cantina. That’s when he gave me a look that almost made me pee my pants. “That’s none of your business,” he told me. “You need to leave now and stay out of my affairs.” I got the hell out of there.

  Timoteo looked at me, his eyes narro
wing to slits. “She was killed five days later.”

  I nodded, and the room became quiet.

  Finally, Mariana looked at me in bewilderment. “They’re selling insurance? That’s what El Seguro means.”

  It all clicked into place for me. “Not insurance, exactly. They’re selling protection. This whole scheme is about protection for undocumented Latinos. It’s perfect when you think about it. A vulnerable population, people who don’t dare go to the police, who keep to themselves, and know how to keep secrets.”

  Timoteo’s brow furrowed. “What kind of protection?”

  “Curtis Drake’s in on it, right? It must be protection from getting deported. People are paying money to stay out of Drake’s crosshairs. Imagine the peace of mind if you knew you were protected from deportation. You’d be willing to pay for that, and also willing to keep your mouth shut, right?”

  “Yeah, but Drake’s job is to deport people,” Mariana said.

  “First of all, maybe he does deport the ones who refuse to pay. And for the rest? There are around 110,000 undocumented people in Oregon. He’s got plenty to choose from, even if he’s protecting some.”

  “Would a scheme like that pay off?” Timoteo asked.

  “I think it would. Let’s say they get only five percent to buy in at, say, two hundred dollars a month.” I paused, doing some quick math in my head. “That nets over a million dollars a month or close to thirteen million a year, tax free. Do it all in cash and launder it through Whittaker’s cannabis business, and it can’t be traced. And that leaves ninety-five percent of the migrant population as future customers.”

  Timoteo whistled. “Holy shit.”

  “Whittaker’s at the center of this,” Zoe chimed in.

  “He’s gotta be,” I said, opening my hands for emphasis. “Necessity’s the mother of invention. His cannabis business is hurting, and he needs money in a bad way. He probably borrowed cartel money to get started.”

  “And Diego Vargas is the recruiter and trainer for the protection sales force, right?” Zoe added.